The Ouroboran Circle
'' "A muscle must be torn countless times before it grow's stronger, a bone must suffer countless fractures before it can be made harder, and a life must snuff out many thousand's of other lifes to grow longer. All improvement is destruction, and all destruction opens the way for growth. Destruction and Growth are two parts of an endlessly circling path."'' The Ourboran Circle believes a simple philosophy, that destruction and death are necessary for creation and growth, and that the former inevitably give way to the latter. This philosophy is the motivating force behind their many strenuous, painful, and actually horribly scarring practices. As a whole, the Ouroboran Circle does not stand for anything other than Self-Improvement through Self-Destruction. A practitioner may be any alignment, and will not be ostracized unless they cause direct problems for the school. This is handled fairly pragmatically, as they see this feeding into their philosophy. Disruptive students are a form of damage to the school which will leave it stronger. Extreme corporal punishment or expulsion from the school is seen as a form of destruction which will improve the student. However, they are also incredibly lax on what constitutes a direct problem for the school. The organization does not take direct action even when one member kills another, because it is an opportunity for the dead member or his students to become stronger. Individual school masters will handle such matters in their own ways--some evil school masters will reward the murderous student, seeing them as having broken through restrictive ideas of morality like so many chains to snatch their desires. Others will punish the murderous student, because they've seen the student is ambitious and they wish to nurture his growth by providing him more destruction to grow back from. Good school masters may punish the murderous student but allow them to remain in the school that the school may grow stronger, others will exile or execute the murderer, watering their school with the blood of justice that it may grow stronger for having been weeded. Everything that the Ouroboran Circle does is about growing because of damage and destruction, rather than in spite of or through avoidance of it. They do nothing about evil members who commit crimes in the world, because there are other, good members, who will always be there to be the growth that comes from the ashes of destruction. The Harrowing The Harrowing is a process by which a martial artist makes it possible to enchant their fists, feet, even elbows and head as magical weapons. Though this process has spread since it's creation, it was originally created by the Ouroboran Circle, and all martial artists who now use it use the same techniques that the Ouroboran Circle first laid out. The process requires exercises similar to those which typify Ouroboran training, repeatedly striking a hard surface so that the bones of the striking surface fracture and regrow stronger, but in the Harrowing, no hand wraps are worn to protect the flesh, and the martial artist strikes an iron pillar while a spellcaster slowly weaves a spell over them. The spell accelerates the healing process of bone, muscle and flesh, while also transmuting the new tissue to silver. The student may stop after this process is completed, and their hands will be silver forever more. They finish this step of the process exhausted and having suffered 1d4 points of Con damage. Rest is recommended, but many petitioners enter the process with healing magic at hand. A petitioner may also elect to continue. They are moved from the iron pillar to an adamantine one, and the process is begun again, this time, though, the magically restored tissues regrow as adamantine, and are, for lack of a better term, a construction of masterful make. Once this portion of the process is finished, the petitioner is exhausted, and will fall unconscious within 1d4 minutes. They have also suffered 1d10 points of Con damage. Again, rest is recommended, but petitioners frequently have healing magic ready to be administered once they are done. Petitioners who stop after the first step have their unarmed strikes changed to silver. The change is permenant, and cannot be dispelled or suppressed in areas of low magic. Petitioners who follow the process through to the end have their unarmed strikes changed permenantly to adamantine, and "reforged" to be masterwork. Their unarmed strikes are in all ways masterwork adamantine manufactured weapons. A petitioner who has followed the complete Harrowing may have their unarmed strikes enchanted as normal weapons might, which is it's own painful ordeal, as their hands are no less sensitive than before, merely harder and stronger. The Harrowing requires special materials which cost 3000 gp and takes 24 hours. If one wishes to perform only the first part, it costs only 150 gp and takes only 6 hours.